North Korean Economy Watch

Pictured Above (2012-12-13): Tanchon Port

UPDATE 2 (2013-4-25): Yonhap reports on the DPRK’s plans for the Tanchon Port:

North Korea is scurrying to develop the resources-rich city of Tanchon on the east coast as part of the country’s efforts to make it a source of foreign currency income, recent news reports from the North showed.

Tanchon will become a key transit point in shipping goods to and from Russia’s Siberia, the northeastern part of China and Mongolia, said the Wednesday issue of the Choson Sinbo, a Korean language newspaper published by North Korean nationals in Japan.

The newspaper, a mouthpiece of North Korea, said the port city of Tanchon should become the source of finance for the country’s broader policy line of pursuing both economic development and nuclear capacities.
In a bid to boost exports, the country completed the construction of a port in May last year in the city with rich reserves of magnesite, zinc and other mineral resources, which sits about in the middle of the country’s east coast line. the Choson Sinbo said the city has about 5.4 billion tons of magnesite deposit, possibly the third biggest reserve in the world.

The news outlet also highlighted the country’s planned ways to increase earnings in the resources-rich city from which the country used to export mineral resources to China for meager profits.

“North Korea will move to manufacture processed magnesite goods in order to make high-value added goods,” the Choson Sinbo noted. “To that end, many plants will be built in the Tanchon region and the areas will become a new industrial zone.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has also underlined the country’s plan to boost profits from the Tanchon development, saying in a national meeting of light industrial workers last month that profits from Tanchon development should be exclusively used to prop up the livelihood of North Korean people.

UPDATE 1 (2012-5-3): KCNA announces the completion of  the Tanchon Port:

A modern trading port made its appearance in the area of Tanchon in South Hamgyong Province on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of President Kim Il Sung’s birth.

The construction of the port with a cargo traffic capacity of millions of tons provides a guarantee for greatly contributing to developing the nation’s foreign trade and improving the people’s living standard.

A ceremony for the completion of the construction was held on the spot Thursday.

Present there were Choe Yong Rim, Kwak Pom Gi, Ro Tu Chol and other officials concerned, officials of the Ministry of Land and Marine Transport, builders and working people of industrial establishments in Tanchon City.

Read out there was a joint congratulatory message sent by the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Cabinet of the DPRK to the officials and members of shock brigades who performed labor feats in the construction of the port.

The message highly praised them for successfully building another giant structure in the era of Songun greatly conducive to building an economic power true to the life-time desires and last instructions of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il.

It expressed belief that they would perform greater feats in the efforts for the country’s prosperity united close around the WPK Central Committee headed by the dear respected Kim Jong Un.

Minister of Land and Marine Transport Kang Jong Gwan, in his speech made for the occasion, said the construction of the port was a brilliant fruition of the wise leadership of Kim Jong Il who initiated the construction of the port and worked heart and soul to translate the desire of the President into a reality till the last moments of his revolutionary life and the clear-sighted guidance and meticulous care of Kim Jong Un.

Speakers at the ceremony pledged themselves to carry out their tasks including dredging in a short span of time in the same spirit as displayed in the construction of the port.

At the end of the ceremony the participants looked round different places of the port.

You can see video of the port inauguration here. (KCNA)

Just a few days ago, the Choson Sinbo reported the following (via Yonhap):

The North is estimated to have 15 billion tons of anthracite coal, a key mineral Pyongyang uses to produce steel, the Choson Sinbo newspaper said.

The North also has an estimated 5.4 billion tons of magnesite in Tanchon, a home to mines in South Hamgyong province, and other areas, according to the newspaper.

North Korea is set to open Tanchon as a modern trade port, the newspaper said, without giving any specific time frame for the opening.

ORIGINAL POST (2010-12-9): On December 2, KCNA announced that Kim Jong-il visited the port in Tanchon County, South Hamgyong County (40.412522°, 128.917731°) where he gave guidance on the port’s reconstruction.

Judging by the satellite imagery of the area on Google Earth, it appears that the project had already begun by May 13, 2009, where we can see concrete blocks ready to be used to extend the jettys (breakwaters).  I have outlined the proposed port project on Google Earth imagery below and provided a picture of the completed project from KCTV:

After the jettys are extended, the major construction work and dredging can begin.  Below are images of the port’s main construction site as it appears on Google Earth and a prediction of the project’s conclusion from KCNA:

It appears from the picture that the port will be connected to the railway system—likely via the nearby Tanchon Smeltery and Magnesia Plant (both recently renovated) whose products will probably be exported from the port.

Tanchon is also home to the DPRK’s Komdok and Taehung Youth Hero Mines (among others).  As is well known to readers, raw materials exports are the DPRK’s most significant (legal and transparent) source of hard currency.  According to Yonhap’s North Korea Handbook 2002:

Geomdeok [Komdok] Mine is a special company in Bonsan-dong, Dancheon, South Hamgyeon Province, and is very famous for about 300 million tons of deposited leads and zincs. This mine annually produces 52,000 tons of lead, 124,000 tons of zinc, both of which account for 47% of total production in North Korea, and more than twice as much as the production of Eunpa Mine, North Korea’s second largest mine, in Eunpa-gun North Hwanghae Province. Concentrates of lead and zinc produced from Geomdeok Mine are processed into electric zinc at Dancheon refinery. Opened in 1932, this mine produces 14,200 tons of raw ore annually with three ore dressing plants. Annual production capacity can reach up to 11 million tons. The first dressing plant was completed in July 1953, near the end of the Korean War. It now processes a million tons of ore a year. The second dressing plant was opened with a production capacity of 3,200 tons of ore. The third one constructed in September 1983 can process 10 million tons of ore.

I am way behind on blog posts. Actually, I am way behind on everything at the moment. However, I wanted to take a second to point out a couple of new items that appeared on Google Earth imagery today.

We can now see the new location of the USS Pueblo:

Learn more about the Pueblo being moved here.

We can also see construction work has begun on the new shopping center and/or skate park in central Pyongyang:

Learn more about the shopping center and/or skate park construction here.

Instagram is no longer an option for regular tourists to the DPRK, but expats and regular visitors are still allowed access to the service. So Koryo Tours has used mobile access to photograph some recent changes in Pyongyang. I thought I would post a couple of their interesting images below and match them with satellite imagery to give a little more perspective.

Taedonggang Bar No. 3 (대동강제3술집):

Renovation on this bar began sometime after Feb 2012. The interior (pics by Koryo Tours) looks like any of the bars in Dupont Circle:

According to Koryo Tours, beer costs 1.5 Euros (per pint/half litre). There are seven taps along the bar. I assume they serve various brands of Taedonggang Beer.

Koryo Tours also posted this image of a new shopping center under construction in downtown Pyongyang:

Plastered to the wall is a map of what the site will look like when construction is completed, however, it is too small to make out with any specificity with this image.  Currently we do not know any details about this facility (or even its proper name), but hopefully it will appear in the official North Korean media before too long. Here is the location of the new facility:

The construction site sits on the former star-shaped fountain of the Mansudae Fountain Park….between the Mansudae Assembly Hall (Supreme People’s Assembly), Pyongyang Student’s and Children’s Palace, Mansudae Art Theater, and new Mansudae Street housing.

UPDATE: In this post I initially misidentified the location of the construction site.  I have fixed it now.  Also, someone has informed me that this lot will not be a shopping center but rather another skate park like we have seen in other parts of Pyongyang.

Today NK News ran this story on the unfinished “Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War Memorial Hall” (조국해방전쟁승리기념관). I thought I would add some images of the interior of the building that were shown on North Korean television:

In addition to the construction of this building, the “Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War Museum” and the “Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War Memorial” are all under renovation. As previously reported (in December 2012), the Pueblo has also been moved here.

The following post I reported on Radio Free Asia yesterday.

The Korean Peoples’ Army (KPA) is increasing its air and artillery capacity in South Hwanghae Province within the vicinity of the disputed West Sea maritime border and Yonphyong-do.

To begin with, in south-west Kangryong County near Sikyo-ri (강령군, 식여리), the DPRK has established four new KPA units each with dispersed revetments which could be used to protect deployed offensive capabilities such as artillery or short range rockets (MRLs)…maybe KN-08s? I will leave it to the professionals to figure out.

According to available commercial satellite imagery, these units were built sometime between 2010-7-4 and 2012-6-20:

In the image above, just one of the four areas that has been constructed, we can see the creation of the new KPA unit as well as six revetments. These revetments lie 14-16 miles from Yonphyong-do.

To the east of this area, near Habupho, Kangryong County (하부포, 강령군), the Korean Peoples’ Army is building three lines of hardened artillery (HART) positions to protect the DPRK’s Multiple Rocket Launch (MRL) vehicles deployed to this area:

According to available satellite imagery, construction on these HARTs began in early 2011, and as of 2012-6-20, they appear to be nearly complete.

The line closest to Yongphyong-do, is 8.5 miles and contains three HARTs (Above). The second line is approximately 9 miles from Yonphyong-do and also contains three HARTs.  The third line is nearly 10 miles from Yonphyong-do and contains 6 HARTs.

The DPRK is also increasing capacities at it the closest fortified air force base in Kiam-ri, Thaethan County (기암리, 태탄군).

Pictured above are two satellite images of the Thaethan air force base in North Korea.  The top image is dated 2011-6-13. The lower image is dated 2012-9-21. The lower image has two highlight boxes.  In the box to the right, we can see the construction of 36 revetments which would be used to shield deployed artillery positions.In the box to the right, we can see an expansion of housing for use by the soldiers stationed at this base.

I have written previously about new KPA construction in the area here and here (photo). Joseph Bermudez also wrote about  a new hovercraft base in South Hwanghae.

The campus of Kim Il-sung University has been the site of high-profile renovations and additions: the construction of the indoor swimming pool and renovation of the main building which includes an electronic library. The school also features a peculiar construction site that has made little progress over the years:

Pictured Above (Google Earth): (L) Kim Il-sung University on 2006-11-11, (R) Kim Il-sung University on 2012-6-20

Given the prestigious position the university holds in the DPRK I have often wondered what the hold up is on this site. Is it a funding issue? Is it a capacity (demand) issue? I still don’t know.

My curiosity about the construction project was raised again when I stumbled on this tourist photo taken at the Three Revolutions Exhibition (image date 2011-9-19):

The image features a new facility called the Kim Il-sung University Building No. 3 and it bears a resemblance to the construction site shown on the satellite imagery above.

That was interesting, but not really worth blogging about. However, on 2012-10-1 North Korean television aired a show about Kim Jong-il’s guidance in helping the school grow. The footage included this scene:

The proposed “Building No. 3″ in this image is not entirely consistent with the artist rendering at the Three Revolutionas Exhibition, but it is similar. It is consistent with the satellite imagery, however.  We can also see that in addition to building No. 3 there are long term plans to to build yet another office/classroom building and a large stadium. Pyongyang could use another large stadium, right?

Pictured Above: Kumsusan Palace of the Sun (formerly “Kumsusan Memorial Palace”). On the left is an image from Google Earth (2012-6-20).  On the right is an image from GeoEye (2012-10-14).

UPDATE 4 (2012-12-17): The Kumsusan Palace has been opened and Kim jong-il’s body has been put on display. According to The Guardian:

North Korea has unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong-il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il-sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong-il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

…

North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armoured train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

Here is footage from DPRK television:

UPDATE 3 (2012-12-17): Well, it was the first anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s death, rather than his February 2013 birthday anniversary, which marked the opening of the renovated Kumsusan Palace. According to the Associate Press (via USA Today):

North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.

North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

Here is footage from North Korean television on the opening of the palace:

UPDATE 2 (2012-11-9): KCNA has reported on the renovations taking place outside the palace but not those taking place inside the palace:

Lawn Spreads Out around Kumsusan Palace of Sun

Pyongyang, November 9 (KCNA) — Service personnel, officials and working people carpeted the plaza park of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun with turf of new species.

They created the lawn covering the area of tens of thousands of square meters in a short span of time with a single-minded desire to spruce up the area around the palace where the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie in state for perpetuity.

The lawn represents the ardent wishes of the service personnel and people of the DPRK to hold the great Generalissimos in high esteem for all ages.

They laid earth of 86 000 cubic meters on the ground to completely replace the former ground in a matter of several days.

They devoted themselves to such work as burning earth and humus soil and sowing the seeds of turf, covering up seeds with soil and taking care of them.

They provided the best conditions for the growth of the turf of new species by covering the area with fertile soil and humus of 12 000 cubic meters.

The seeds of all turfs sprouted in a matter of four-five days since their sowing and each has now two-three stems.

UPDATE 1: Raymond Cunningham photos of the place here.

ORIGINAL POST (2012-11-4): A few days ago I worked on this story for Radio Free Asia. The story highlights construction work being done at Kumsusan Palace. To date this work has not been reported in the North Korean media.

What do we see?  Most obviously, the large concrete plaza in front of the palace is being converted into a large park with new fountains and displays.

The former plaza was approximately 94,000 square meters of flat concrete blocks (according to Google Earth measurements). The new park in the plaza takes up approximately 57,000 square meters, or 60% of the real estate. This will prevent the sort of large scale military ceremonies that have taken place in the plaza over the years, however it will make the facility more enjoyable as a proper park.

We can also see that the main building is surrounded by debris (outlined in yellow), indicating that significant renovations are taking place within the building itself. Since the DPRK has announced that Kim Jong-il’s body will go on display like that of his father, Kim Il-sung, we can expect that exhibits on the life and accomplishments of Kim Jong-il are being added to complement the Kim Il-sung exhibits.

Given the date of the satellite image it is likely that the project will not be completed before winter temperatures arrive. It is possible that construction could come to a halt in the winter, yet I suspect that the North Korean workers (probably soldiers) will have to labor through the winter for a grand public opening on February 16th next year.

The construction work has yet to be announced in any official North Korean media outlet, and the cost and scale of the renovations are currently unknown outside of the DPRK.

The facility has not seen this scale of work since it was transformed following the death of Kim Il-sung.  During the renovations, the DPRK was widely criticized for spending millions of dollars on the palace even as many experienced food shortages and starvation throughout the country during the “Arduous March”.

UPDATE: Last week I reported this story in Radio Free Asia.

ORIGINAL POST: In The Armed Forces of North Korea Joseph Bermudez gives a thorough accounting of most of the DPRK’s airfields, airports, highway strips, and air force bases.  Since the book was published in 2001, however, it is slightly out of date. This week I found a new North Korean runway in Kumgang County which appears to have been built between 2007-5-21 and 2012-9-22 to replace a disused runway five miles to the south.

Pictured above (Google Earth): I have outlined Kumgang County and show the positions of the old and new runways.

The former runway strip (documented in The Armed Forces of North Korea) is located just a mile north of the town of Kumgang. It appears to have fallen into disuse:

The nearby Kumgang-chon River has eroded a southern portion of the runway. It also appears a small drainage canal has been dug across a central section of the unpaved runway.

The new Kumgang Airfield is more sophisticated:

To begin with, the runway (appx 1km x 70m) is paved.

I was curious as to whether this runway is intended to serve primarily for civilian or military purposes. Evidence in favor of civilian use: The runway is close to Inner-Kumgang. Tourists could conceivably fly to this airport and drive appx 20 km (by road) to the Inner Kumgang Rest House. Tourists could also drive 35km to the Kumgang resort. Additionally, there is already a large North Korean air force base just 20km due north of the new runway in Thongchon County. I am not sure if an Air Koryo IL-62M can take off/land on this new runway, but certainly any of the commuter prop planes that carry tourists on domestic flights should not  find it too difficult.

Evidence for military use: As of September, there is yet to be built any infrastructure that would serve as a “civilian” airport terminal or air traffic control tower (I use the word “civilian”, but the KPA Air Force controls all of the DPRK’s airspace).  These types of infrastructure can be seen at other North Korean “civilian” airports in Pyongyang, Hamhung, and Samjiyon.  It could be that construction is still ongoing. Additionally, the airport is currently protected by a small number of hardened artillery positions (HARTs) located next to the runway. Artillery, however, can be seen at other “civilian” airports in the DPRK as well.    Just south of the HARTs we can also see what appears to be some tunneling or excavation work being carried out in the hillside.  The purpose of this work remains unclear:

Although KoryoLink’s corporate performance no longer appears in Orascom shareholder reports, Naguib Sawiris has given an interview in Forbes in which he offers some business details:

Sawiris has a 75% stake in Koryolink via his Orascom Telecom Media & Technology (OTMT) unit, with the remainder held by a company under the Ministry of Post & Telecommunications. He says revenues in 2012 should reach around €186 million ($145 million), with an average revenue per user of €8.6. The network only permits domestic calls and locally hosted data services. A separate cell network is available for foreigners in North Korea.

…

FORBES: How many subscribers does Koryolink have? How extensive is your coverage in DPRK?

NAGUIB SAWIRIS: Koryolink currently has more than 1.5 million subscribers. Coverage includes the capital Pyongyang in addition to 15 main cities, more than 100 small cities, and some highways and railways. Territory coverage is around 14%, and more than 90% population coverage. The subscriber base has been increasing at a very healthy rate from 950,000 at [year-end] 2011 to an estimated 1.7 million at [year-end] 2012.

FORBES: Under your joint venture with the Ministry of Telecommunications, when will Koryolink lose its exclusivity? What will happen after this period ends?

NS: Exclusivity was granted for a period of 4 years from launch. After the expiry of exclusivity in Dec. 2012, Koryolink received written confirmation that for an additional period of 3 years (until 2015) no foreign investors will be allowed in the mobile business. However, we are continuing to expand our network and services to further solidify our position [in order] to be ready for any possible competition.

FORBES: What is your role in the construction of the Ryugyong Hotel? What other real estate interests do you have in DPRK?

NS: This is a special investment that we are maintaining through our banking subsidiary in the DPRK, where Orascom has the right to operate this facility. The construction, repair and facade installations have all been completed last summer. We are planning to relocate Koryolink headquarters into the tower very soon to bring life to the building. There are no other real-estate investments in the DPRK, however, Orabank, our banking arm in DPRK, is actively working towards developing mobile-related businesses and projects.

Chris Green offers some great information (about which I have long wondered)  on the process required to acquire a cell phone:

First, the individual wishing to obtain a cell phone must go to his or her local Communications Technology Management Office (통신통화관리국 or CTMO; in provincial capitals only) or a subordinate arm of the same (in smaller cities) to obtain a three page application form. This form, once filled in, must be stamped by the Ministry of Public Security officer assigned to the individual’s workplace or, for those without official workplaces, attached to his or her local people’s unit.

Having paid off the public security official in cigarettes or cash (more often the former, according to this author’s sources, because it arouses less friction) he or she must submit the stamped form to the CTMO or equivalent, whereupon it is sent, with all the speed one would expect of the North Korean transportation network, to the Ministry of Communications in Pyongyang. At this point there is little else to be done but go away and pitch the proverbial tent, because at best it takes a month for the staff in the revolutionary capital to process the application.

Assuming, and it should not be assumed, that those checks done in Pyongyang don’t yield any incriminating evidence of wrongdoing (don’t forget, the North Korean legal system makes every adult a criminal in one way or another, something which can come back and haunt any individual whenever “rents” are desired), the individual will eventually be ordered back to his local communications office, whereupon he will be handed a payment form. He or she must then take this form to a bank, and engage with the separate, and no less inefficient, bureaucracy therein in order to pay the majority (though not all) of the cost of a phone and Koryolink network activation fee.[1]

The payment form, duly stamped by a functionary at the bank, must then be taken back to the CTMO or equivalent, whereupon it can be exchanged for half the stamped application form originally sought from the ministry in Pyongyang. Here, finally, the individual reaches a watershed moment: this form can actually be exchanged for a cellular telephone!

However, the pain is actually quite a long way short of being over. In a moment of uncharacteristic efficiency, the actual cell phone shop is often directly outside the communications office, but in a moment of karma-balancing inefficiency, it doesn’t open much, carries a limited amount of product and is pitifully understaffed. As a result, queues are long, as are waits. Assuming an individual lives long enough to reach the front of such a queue, he or she is finally offered the opportunity to hand over another $70-$100 and depart the scene with a brand new phone.

Writing in the Daily NK, Kim Kwang-jin explains how people are getting around this burdensome regulatory process:

Therefore, the source said, “Middlemen in larger cities are getting multiple phones activated in random people’s names and then taking them to smaller cities to sell. Alternatively, households that don’t have any problem getting that kind of approval are mobilizing the names of their entire families to get phones, which they are then selling on to the middlemen.”

“The end users are buying these cell phones for $300 to $500 from the middlemen or from private sellers. This saves them having to go to the trouble of applying to Koryolink,” he added.

A basic Koryolink phone can be purchased officially for roughly $270- $300, excluding bribes and extraneous costs. The price of one of these semi-legal phones depends on duration of use and model. The best product, the T1, a clamshell design, is the latest and costs more than $500. The next mid-range model is the T3, another clamshell; there is also a similarly priced phone with a slide design. The budget offerings are the T95 and T107. Differences in price are mostly attributable to differences in sound quality rather than the designs, sources assert.

In addition, there are also phones available for use within individual provinces. These products, which are similar to the so-called “city phones” that were briefly permitted in the late 90s but soon got withdrawn, cost just $70 at the time of writing.

Geoffrey See of Choson Exchange also offers some insight on Ora Bank’s mobile-related business projects:

However, it appears that Naguib, Chairman of Orascom, might have other ideas. In his words, “Orabank, our banking arm in DPRK, is actively working towards developing mobile-related businesses and projects.” The 3G network provides a platform for a range of other services that emerging market economies would need including remittances and payments through mobile banking and mobile payments. Given the primitive development of the services sector, mobile provides an opportunity for Orascom to upend the services industry in North Korea.

This was something I was originally looking at in North Korea. Payments are currently messy in the country. On a previous trip, I remembered an account of a North Korean trying to pay the handphone bill. Apparently the payment went to the wrong account, and the North Koreans spent the morning calling and shouting at some people to make the mistaken beneficiary return the money so that the payment could go to the right account. For what mobile banking and payments could potentially look like in North Korea, check out M-pesa.

Read the full story here:
Pyongyang Calling For Egyptian Telecoms Tycoon Naguib Sawiris
Forbes
Simon Montlake
2012-11-18

Pictured Above (Google Earth): Two Google Earth satellite images of Hoeryong (L: 2002-4-27, R: 2008-12-25) which show the construction of residential apartments buildings as well as the town’s new main market.

Hoeryong is a town in North Hamgyong Province that lies across the Tumen (Tuman) River from China.  According to North Korean political narratives it is also the childhood home of Kim Jong-il’s mother, Kim Jong-suk.  It has been the the site of a large construction boom in the last five years, and now, according to the Daily NK, Chinese tourists are being brought in on very limited itineraries. According to the article:

The Hoiryeong source explained, “North Hamkyung Province ‘shock troops’ and military unit construction teams have been here for three years on Kim Jong Il’s orders for the construction, and now it is finished.” Local households were asked to contribute 12,000 North Korean Won each to the construction effort, he added.

Hoiryeong used to have few buildings with five floors, but now it has a considerable number of new four and five floor apartment buildings built around the center of the city, as well as a number of newly built commercial facilities. Buildings in the downtown core have also been spruced up with external lighting, a project that began last April.

There are a number of new restaurants in the area. One, ‘Hoiryeonggwan’, has been decorated in the style of Pyongyang’s famous ‘Okryugwan’, something that Kim Jong Il is said to have ordered in December 2010 when he visited the construction site. Elsewhere, restaurants serving spicy marinated beef, duck, dog and Chinese food have also opened their doors.

However, these restaurants only currently open on the weekend or when Chinese tour groups make an advanced reservation, according to the source, who revealed that local people regard the construction effort more as an attempt to generate tourist revenue than to make it a real ‘model city’, as the official propaganda claims.

“Chinese tourists come, then they visit the statue of Kim Jong Suk and the place where she grew up, and then they are taken to one or other of the restaurants,” the source said. “They drink and make merry then go, all without visiting any scenic spots; thus, the authorities make money.”

As with other tourist operations, it is possible that this small step will lead to a softening of restrictive tourism regulations and potentially the arrival of Western tourists.  But don’t hold your breath!  Chinese tourists have been visiting Sinuiju on a regular basis, but westerners are generally still prohibited from touring the city

Additional Information: 

1. On the opening of Hoeryong’s “Food Avenue”

2. Succession not popular in Hoeryong

Read the full story here:
Model City or Tourist Trap: Hoiryeong Sparkles
Daily NK
Choi Song Min
2012-10-15